According to major UK retailer Clove, HTC has officially given word that its One phone's launch will be delayed in Britain by 2 weeks, and that the phone will go on sale March 29th, as opposed to the original launch date of March 15th. No reasons were provided to account for the change, but we're assuming supply issues have something to do with it - an assumption that, it turns out, is not without merit.

Last week, Android Authority reported via Taiwanese news site FocusTaiwan that HTC was facing 'severe' availability issues with the One phone because of major problems with the manufacturing process of key components in the phone's Ultrapixel camera. An investment firm familiar with HTC's supply line received information that the yield (usable portion of total manufactured parts) on two critical components in the Ultrapixel sensor was under 30%. While such a level might not be unheard of for a cutting-edge, just-announced microprocessor (it would still be pretty low), it's apparently far lower than expected for this camera unit. As such, that Taiwanese firm's shipment estimates for HTC's One phone were massively slashed -down 80% from the initial amount of units expected.

Clove's announcement of a delay would seem to mesh with this story. If HTC is having supply issues, it will take them longer to accumulate a enough stock for a worldwide launch without major shortages. Let's hope HTC gets whatever the problem is resolved soon.

Comments

Jamie Dalgetty

is this phone doomed?

fixxmyhead

yea as soon as the s4 goes on sale

TY

I sincerely hope that HTC can resolve this issue. Even though I am not a fan of HTC (as a flashaholic I prefer the Nexus line), I can see that they put a lot of effort to refine user experience in their phones; the One deserve to sell more.

dazrin

I hope this doesn't delay things too long - I need a new phone before April 15 and I want either a GS4 or a One! (Not holding my breathe on the GS4.)

ProductFRED

It's definitely because of the Galaxy S4. They don't want to a repeat of what happened with the One X; it was forgotten like 5 minutes after the S3 came out.

topgun966

Looks like the S4 for me

TheCookie

HTC Sweden already said this on their Facebook-page a couple of days ago...

Exactly. They needed to get this phone out at least a month ahead of the S4 in order to compete.

Ashish Raj

"that the phone will go on sale March 29th, as opposed to the original launch date of March 15th.".. Hmmm, did HTC ever officially announce the original release date?? If not, then how is it 'delayed'?

Jamal Adam

This is not how they should be starting off their comeback. They should have been prepared.

Giri

Is Samsung the only company who can churn out billions of models and yet have all of them in the stock all the time ?

mauric

Do i have to remind you of the pebble blue S3 :p?

Lou

Delays? As much as I hate to call it in this soon it seems this device will not be winning any share in the market when the S4 is official. HTC is on the brink of collapse and this could very well be the final nail in the coffin because they just cannot keep up with Samsung.

Andrew

Regardless of the reason for this (if it is <30% yield, then that's pretty shocking), this is only going to hurt them. Still, it's clear they're going to lose. Even now, when they KNOW they have to bombard the world with marketing for this - possibly their last major top-end smartphone - they still haven't done it. I haven't seen any HTC marketing in a long long time here in Britain.

It goes without saying that in the run up to the GS4 release, it's going to be difficult to see ads for anything other than that phone.